Wednesday, August 29, 2012

My Job: A Love/Hate Relationship

Ah, the workplace- the place where it seems we as adults living in the cold yet hectic work world spend most of our waking hours. Many of us even spend countless time on our job mentally, though physically we may have come hours ago.

I started working at my current clinic May of 2011. In January of 2011, I was first introduced as a student, finishing up required clinical time, my very last semester of college (or university to non-American readers). As many college seniors, I was spastic. Rather than being eager to no longer have to go to class, my mind was preoccupied with finding a job, getting my own place, doing something with my life that wouldn't make the last few years a complete waste of time. {Even though I believe everything happens for a reason, I still detest failed efforts and wasted time.}

As fate would have it, this same clinic, located in my hometown, had an opening. To sweeten the deal, this clinic was my absolute favorite of the three in which I worked as a student- organized and orderly, casual yet structured, with a couple of sassy coworkers with 40 years of combined experience in the optical field. To skip over the boring parts, and to spare you all the torture of having to relive the suspense (more like anxiety) with me, I'll cut to the chase. I put on the charm, emphasized how well trained I've been, with both clinical experience and book knowledge, and reminded my soon-to-be boss that I was going to become certified with the American Board of Opticianry. Obviously, it worked.

I've been there for a while now (I'll leave the math to you) and have really come a long way. I want to say I've seen everything, but then I listen to some of the stories from my coworkers. I've been scared almost to the point of laughter, I've been cursed at and screamed at, I've been hugged by children, I've been sneezed on by homeless people, I've been given candy by adorable little old ladies (my absolute favorite patients!!), I've been given home made candles, I've practiced my substandard Spanish, and I've had a holy woman lay hands upon me and bless me. I've also met one elder goth, which is one more than I knew existed in this city!

Some days my body feels broken, some days my spirits feel broken. Once I came home and drank an entire bottle of champagne.. okay, I'm making that up. I actually chuggeda bottle of champagne when I came home. Other days I feel uplifted, I get a compliment from a patient (my favorite was "beautiful gothic goddess"), we get free food (what can I say- I'm easy to please!). Most days my goal is to come home feeling like I accomplished all of my work and fixed any mistakes made by myself and others.

I do enjoy my work, and so please forgive me, because I often find myself rambling about the science behind how your pair of spectacles (or even contacts) work. I even have dreams about fixing glasses and adjusting them to patients. I just assumed the final frontier was to blog about it.